Thursday, October 28, 2010

Standing outside the other night with a light misty rain burning tiny ice holes through my coat I waited for a bus that I had assumed (wrongly) was supposed to come 20 minutes earlier. During this half frozen posture of anticipation I realized that being far from home (far enough that a phone call home would cost a small fortune) and taking public transport is making me learn what it means to wait quietly.

I watched as bus after bus stopped, blazing numbers with unfamiliar destinations and spilling people from their well lit interiors into the dank darkness to clutter on the sidewalk's edge then disband and drift apart to their various separate destinations. Airplanes rushed overhead, their bottoms looking like large bug's bellies to my anxious eyes. Not yet being used to taking the bus, my eyes would only briefly land on the Brussel's airport sign, the twitching lamp or the sheltered bus stop benches across the street (I got no such luxury where I stood) but remained glued to the empty street, searching for a brightly lit, appropriately numbered bus to approach.

It's strangely wonderful to be forced to stand and wait sometimes, to be made to take in a single area with a patience not often present except in situations of need.

4 comments:

HJMead87 said...

You paint a picture that sounds cold, wet and miserable and still manage to end saying that it is good. I hereby dub thee an optimist.

Aubrey said...

Yikes. An optimist? I don't know how I feel about that...

HJMead87 said...

Yeah, I guess I should have thought about your other posts a little more before dubbing you. Perhaps not an optimist, more likely you are just in an unbelievably good mood and even a cold, wet and miserable evening can't get you down. That post certainly seemed optimistic though.

Abby said...

For the record: I was not the one who said it (this time). But these comments certainly made me laugh!

The post is lovely, too.